Jones, I respect your opinion that you "do not think that is what the cross is about," however, no where in my 482 posts over 3+ years have I ever held myself out an exemplar of the things for which the cross stands.

Further, surely you do not believe that everyone is automatically worthy of forgiveness? I believe forgiveness is something that is earned and I have seen absolutely nothing in the people that committed and supported the attacks on 9/11 that even begins to hint at movement in that direction. Much as only God can judge someone's soul, I'll leave the subject of forgiveness to Him too.

You mention the "path to destruction," I believe forgiving an enemy not worthy of forgiveness is an even more imminent path to destruction.

Finally, I respectfully disagree with your characterization of "the US policy of revenge on innocent people in the name of 911" but if you had a relative die in service to our nation in the fight against radical Islam, you have my family's gratitude and prayers.

(The last phrase took me a while to type because I never have the words sufficient enough to express my feelings, rest assured your relative did not die in vein, but in the fight for people to live in freedom.)

Daniel,

There's love your neighbor and pray that they come to know the truth of Jesus' love while you defend yourself and then there's love your neighbor while you do nothing about them slaughtering you and your family. I'm more of an advocate for the former.

No where in the Bible am I commanded to lay down and be slaughtered by totalitarian-murdering-extremists. I'll pray for their souls while I defend myself with a sword.

There is nothing unChristian in defending ones self, nor in remembering (never forget). As for forgiving, if you want to play semantics, fine, one can forgive them on a spiritual level (forgive them for they know not what they do) but you don't forgive them on a physical level. Christianity does not demand that there be no prisons or military and that those who commit crimes and atrocities not face the consequences. Forgive the soul and punish the body.

A bunch of quotes, an argument does not make.

No matter how much you and radical Islam want/hope that Christianity is the religion of sheep being led to the slaughter...it is not.

What would your little quotes do in the fact of Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot? Without the soldier leading the way, your high and mighty attitude would be extinguished and the world would be under the oppression of the defeated tyrannical leaders of the past.

Please come back with actual argument and discussion or your future comments will be deleted.

Daniel,

"Threaten to erase the comments of someone else is a better argument?"

No...I threatened to erase non-argument. You have responded with actual discussion which is why your comment is here and I am responding. I enjoy dialog, not unresponsive postings of quotations.

"These quotes are the Lord's words."

Yes, they are God's words, but that does not make them immune from being taken out of context, being misinterpreted or misapplied. Every word of the Bible is not an absolute command to be applied in all instances. Acts 27:26, of the New American Standard Bible says, "we must all run around." Golly, I hope you aren't seated at your desk typing away...that would be ignoring the word of God! Or, maybe should we consider the context of those words?

God made us highly intelligent reasoning beings. Do you think the book of his Word was then written for idiots? Sure, quotations have a place in learning about the Word of God, but the ability to cite passages is not the penultimate of theological understanding. Using the reasoning mind God gave us, one must take the Word of God as a whole, while applying specific passages within the context of the time they were said and the time in which they are to be applied. While this is not license to ignore God's commands, it does explain why good true Christians can respectfully disagree on nuisances of Christianity.

"Erase my words if that satisfies you"

In over three years and 1687 comments, I can still count on one hand (with fingers to spare) the number of non-spam, non-filthy, responsive comments I have deleted.

"But you would not act better than the iranian priests (the Ayatollahs, you know), who yesterday have banned Google in Iran."

You really show the weakness of your arguments by trying to compare myself and my threatening to delete/block non-responsive comments on my personal weblog with Iranian Imams and Iran’s massive state sponsored censorship. Hey, you're reading this...you know who else read stuff...Hitler...so you know, you and Hitler are comparable. Sheesh!

"Freedom of expression is so frightening?"

And, now we touch on a common fallacy. That my deleting/blocking your comments on my personal weblog is somehow an infringement on another person's freedom of expression. That is not what the Constitution says nor what freedom of expression/speech is about. You are free to start up your own website and say whatever you want and you are free from government interference in doing that. That is freedom of expression/speech. You have absolutely zero, nadda, nil, no right whatsoever to say anything on this, my, website. I can ban or delete you in any conceivable manner and doing so would never touch upon your freedom of expression.

Like the Hollywood idiots who have no idea what freedom of speech is and who spew stupidity from their mouths and then when the public won't go to their movies or concerts they claim censorship. Censorship does not mean they are free from consequences. They are still free to say whatever they want and people are free to go to their movies/concerts if they want.

My actions do not affect your freedom of expression.

Perhaps you took the words "freedom of speech" out of the context of the whole Constitution??? See what trouble that can get you into!?!?

It is now 2010 as we all know. Two weeks ago, Dec. 14-17, I participated in a freshman high school field trip to New York for one week. While we were there we visited ground zero. We went to the little church that survived 9/11 and bought a this picture from a charity group. Out of the 15 who went, myself and the three teachers were the only ones who stopped, stepped aside, and said prayers for the families and lost lives of 9/11. Its just sad that some people can't stop what there doing, like my friends who laughed the whole time we were at ground zero, and think about what happened and say a single prayer or even just give a moment of silence to all of the fallen. Since i've visited ground zero i've viewed life in a totally different way.

Once again myself and the three teachers payed are tributes and we all then got back on our bus to head back to the hotel. As we were riding back i sat in the back of the bus thinking what it must have been like to walk around the corner and look up at the Twin towers and all of a sudden see a plane go crashing into them, and what it would feel like to lose a family member or friend during the attack. These thoughts made me start to cry but I made sure my friends didn't see me because they wouldn't care.

As i'm typing this i'm starting to cry again. And another thing about ground zero before I end my story. If you've ever visited ground zero you'll know that it has a feeling to it, one that you'll never forget, its a sad and in a way scary feeling. Anyways as I was saying, now every year on 9/11 my family and I are going to fly up to New York on 9/9 so we can share our prayers and sadness with the rest of the city and nation. 9/11 is slowly being forgotten about by some people in this country. I will NEVER FORGET.
I pray for those who died on 9/11/01.

Everyone who reads this, you need to stop your life for just 10 minutes and think about what it would've felt like to be there that day. Then you need to pray and care more about your life like I have done.

Thank you for reading this,
God Bless America,
God Bless The Fallen and There Families,
God Bless The Soldiers in Iraq,
God Bless The World!!!!!!!!!!!